Happy City Steamboat Restaurant (Live Seafood) @ Kepong

When it comes to steamboat I bet most of you think of going for the buffet type first. Although it’s cheaper and you get to eat all you can, the ingredients are often those of cheap and of substandard freshness. Most of the time I leave the restaurant unsatisfied.
Alternatively, by spending 20-30% more you could have a nice steamboat meal at Happy City Steamboat Restaurant just a street away from Carrefour Kepong. As far as steamboat goes this is surprisingly good and the seafood set actually comes with LIVE seafood!

By the way do you notice Kepong and Menjalara area are filled with steamboat restaurants at every corner? There must be an explanation to this..

A few seafood sets are available, broken down according to the number of pax. For a 2-3 pax set, it cost RM79.90 and it comes with tiger prawns, various seafood like scallop, mussels and etc (one of each only), and a choice of flower crabs or a whole fish (choice of Red Snapper or White Pomfret).

Also included in the set is a standard personal set in Happy City, which contains the usual processed food is included but the amount is little so you will definitely feel you are having a proper seafood steamboat. Even then, the processed food tastes a lot better than the rest. I especially liked the Sui Kaw.

The choices of soup here is also not limited to clear and tomyam only. I highly recommend the Drunken Pot @ RM15 (yes, you need to pay for the soup base) It derives the flavor and sweetness from the various Chinese herbs used to cook it like goji berry and Chinese dates.
Best of all it does not feel like you’re purely drinking MSG only, eww. Anyway, a separate bottle of Chinese wine is provided for you to adjust the level of “drunkenness” to your liking.

Actually I did not know or even expected live seafood from the set. So when the tiger prawns arrived covered I was kinda baffled. Then the prawns suddenly moved and jumped, so strong even the cover was toppled. These prawns are as fresh as you could get, to be cooked alive and eaten immediately. Sea fresh too, not those farmed ones.

You know those farmed prawns that always have shells sticking to the flesh? I really dislike those. Compared to these, it’s like heaven and earth’s difference. The shells came off so easily in one piece and the flesh was so firm. Simply delicious.

Big, live, sandless and juicy clams, fresh from the tanks. 200g of it, also included in the seafood set.

We were feeling lazy to peel crabs so we chose fish instead. Plus, we were told that a batch of fresh red snappers just arrived, which was highly recommended by the restaurant. We were sold and did not regret the decision at all.
Like the prawns and clams, the fish was taken from the tank alive and prepared upon order. Its size was huge with plenty of meat, tasted damn fresh and nice. The key is to not overcook it.

The bill came to a total of RM97 for a meal like this (3 pax) inclusive of drinks. I feel the price is justified considering steamboat buffets in this area cost about RM24-26 per pax. By adding a few bucks you could actually enjoy better and fresher seafood so the comparison is a no brainer. The seafood you have here is even fresher than those you buy from the market!
So you could choose to either indulge in high quality food, or stuff yourself silly with subpar quality food. And most importantly I left as a happy customer. No wonder they name it Happy City Steamboat, lol.

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